


the benefits of costly caffeine

by lattely



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Artist Steve Rogers, First Dates, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Punk Steve Rogers, also i'm mad that the bucky & maria friendship hasn't been globally discovered, background Sharon Carter/Maria Hill, this is incredibly self-indulgent and i have no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 13:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17788058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lattely/pseuds/lattely
Summary: Suddenly, the lazy rhythm of his walk is being accompanied by another set of feet, thundering up the steps, steadily growing closer. Bucky ducks to the right as a small figure the feet belong to rounds the corner frantically, and, before he knows what hit him, the person collides with him head-on, their armful of notebooks and loose papers slipping in a heap to the floor, both Bucky and the man reeling back from the force of the collision.“Shit, fuck, I’m so sorry,” the stranger says. Bucky is immediately taken aback at the bluntness of the guy’s first words, and the deep baritone emanating from such a petite frame alike.





	the benefits of costly caffeine

**Author's Note:**

> You have _no clue_ how long this idea has been pestering me. So I made the unbelievable happen - I sat down and wrote it.
> 
> I owe a huge thank you to my incredible beta [Nathaniel](http://transbucky.tumblr.com) for the lightning-fast help in making this story better, and for generally existing. You're a champ, pal!

Of course Maria would leave her acrylics in their apartment on the one day Bucky’s morning lecture was cancelled. It’s all a conspiracy, he could fucking shake on it, the whole population of New York secretly ganging up on him at ten in the morning to make his life a living hell. He was so happy to check his e-mail and find a message from Professor Gardiner announcing a blessed absence of his one mandatory Friday class, but Maria goddamn Hill had to go and ruin in by leaving her painting kit on her dresser.

“Barnes, I’m begging you,” Maria’s tinny voice pleads in the speaker of Bucky’s phone. “Medeley, that bitch, she won’t let me go, and I’ve told you how shitty the paints are in the studio. I swear she does it on purpose, buys shit acrylics to lower grades for ‘quality of work’, or whatever.” Indeed, Maria has told him. Nine times. “Please, Bucky, fuck.”

Bucky heaves a long-suffering groan, just to let Maria know how much of a liability she is. “ _Fine_. But you’re buying me a frap. A venti, nothing less, or I’ll throw all your socks in the trash chute.”

Maria sighs loudly in relief on the other side of the line. “I’ll get you a frap and a cinnamon roll, just get your ass in gear and come here before she eats my head.”

“I would pay all of twenty dollars to see that,” Bucky huffs, throwing back the rest of his tea. On a daily basis, he’s not a tea person, but Sharon, Maria’s lovey-dovey girlfriend who, to his surprise, Bucky gets along just fine with, has brought a lemon meringue rooibos blend from some hole-in-the-wall place on Staten Island, that Bucky can’t be assed to resist.

“Like you have twenty dollars to spare,” Maria counters, which, okay, ouch. He’s a broke pre-med student, and he could go a morning without being reminded of the cobwebs gathering in his wallet, but again, so could she, so she’s just projecting onto him. He’d get her a therapist if he himself didn’t live off jell-o and instant noodles.

College life, so glamorous.

“Be there in fifteen,” Bucky says, getting up to brush his teeth. He’s not going out into the world with his breath smelling like despair and the leftover pizza he had for breakfast. When did he become so disgusting again? Ah yes, when he, the idiot he is, fled his cozy family nest to move into a 40-square-meter apartment with a mean lesbian from Vancouver.

“Make it ten,” Maria says, and as Bucky hangs up, he throws, “In your dreams,” into the speaker, disconnecting the call before she has a chance to astral project into their tiny living room and shove her Vans-clad foot up his miserable ass.

Once he steps out into the street, canvas bag of paint tubes thrown over his metal shoulder, Bucky forgets to hold a petty grudge against Maria. It’s a beautiful April morning, he has to admit - it’s warm, but not so much as to make shedding his leather jacket requisite. There’s a light breeze, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and in a way, Bucky’s filled with gratitude for Maria’s rare bout of forgetfulness; otherwise, he would’ve spent his day lounging on the sofa, getting crumbs on the throw pillows while not paying the slightest bit of attention to a rerun of an ancient season of _Keeping Up With The Kardashians_.

Maybe he will stop by the grocery store on his way back home to buy fruit, and bake a cherry pie. Or, Lord forbid, he’ll go to a park and let his face catch some color.

Nice weather is twisting him into a wholesome suburban mom. He doesn’t like that.

Maria’s painting workshop is only a short subway drive away. When he graduated high school, Bucky was up for fighting tooth and nail to stay in Brooklyn, but his college of choice was, sadly, not eager to relocate from Manhattan to humor him. However sour he was about packing his bags, his disdain for the idea of losing an extra half an hour of sleep to morning commute tipped the scales. So now he wakes up an extra thirty minutes later than he would had he stayed at home, and sometimes, when the heavens open briefly and drop money into his pocket, he buys a hipster bagel in a cafe on the street corner to sweeten the deal of attending Organic Chemistry at nine am on a Tuesday.

When Bucky enters the towering building of one the art college’s facilities scattered all over the borough, and climbs the stairs to the fourth floor - because of course the elevator is out of order - Maria is waiting for him outside a closed door labeled with ‘Prof. A. Medeley’ scrawled on a piece of red tape, tapping her foot impatiently against the motel-style blue linoleum.

She’s wearing a huge Queen t-shirt splattered with dried paint (an act of vandalism if Bucky’s ever seen one), and dark wash jeans that, going by the sagging knees and the creased thighs, have lived a long, long life. It’s her typical arting ensemble; outside of class, she adapts her curiously odd sense of style that, somehow, she manages to pull off with fantastic results. On countless occasions, he’s seen women in all shapes and sizes come up to ask for her number with varying degrees of shyness while the both of them were out and about.

When she sees Bucky walking towards her, Maria immediately moves to meet him halfway. Her strides are long, quiet, and she bridges the distance between them within a moment.

Maria is a person whose very eyes scream ‘I can and will fight you with no apparent explanation’, and the way she moves is one of the reasons Bucky would duck out of her way on the street: quick and gracefully deadly, despite her being an art major with a penchant for mini marshmallows in her hot chocolate.

“You’re a good egg, Barnes,” she says without a hello, hurriedly relieving him of his luggage.

“I know,” Bucky shoots back as Maria leafs through the bag, browsing the tubes to check if it holds all the colors she needs. Her hair, held in an errant ponytail by a single scrunchie, falls into her eyes, one strand at a time, until the ‘do crumbles completely and she’s left with a mouthful of dark curls.

Bucky slides an elastic off his wrist; it’s his favorite, and if anyone needs proof on Maria Hill being reliable, it’s that she’s trusted with James Barnes’ hair accessories, a privilege one needs to rightfully earn.

“Here,” he says, extending the elastic to Maria. “Scrunchies eat ass, bub.”

“Ha,” Maria says dryly, but she snatches the offered hair tie and, yanking the pale pink scrunchie from where it’s hanging on for dear life to a tangle in her hair, she puts her locks up again, this time looping the elastic tighter around the pony and tugging on her hair to have it sit firmly in place.

“You owe me a latte now, too,” Bucky says. Maria glowers at him, but he presses on, grinning at her scowl. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Are you only being nice so I will sponsor your caffeine addiction?”

“Gotta do what needs to be done.”

Maria rolls her eyes, a step away from nailing him in the dick, or so her expression suggests. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Thanks. That means a lot.”

Lips curling upward, just so it’s barely noticeable to a person trained in her countenance, she pushes a mock-disgusted ‘eugh’ from the back of her throat, and punches Bucky in his flesh arm, not at all lightly.

That’s what he cherishes about her: she’s everything short of the happy-go-lucky dipshits whose asses the sun shines out of, built instead out of sharp snark fit to rival Bucky’s. He isn’t wired to thrive on earnest simpers and strawberry fields; he’s a snappy hermit with an eerie prosthetic arm and shoulders broad enough not to fit in some of Ikea’s kitchen displays (which is _not_ funny, contrary to what Rebecca says, especially when he hits his head on a lamp named a word that could only have been created by a rogue cat who decided to take a power nap on someone’s keyboard).

“I’ll buy you that frap and whatnot someday, but I got to go,” Maria says, shouldering the bag of acrylics. She lifts her hand for their habitual fist bump, which Bucky happily delivers, and turns away to the door, throwing a sly grin back at him as she wraps her fingers around the doorknob. “Try not to get run over by a car,” she says as a means of farewell, and enters the classroom.

Bucky breathes a short laugh under his breath and spins on his heels to head to the stairwell, back the way he came. The wide, brightly lit hallways are silent, the building immersed in the calm of ongoing classes, and Bucky’s steps echo on the floor while he descends the first flight of stairs.

Suddenly, the lazy rhythm of his walk is being accompanied by another set of feet, thundering up the steps, steadily growing closer. Bucky ducks to the right as a small figure the feet belong to rounds the corner frantically, and, before he knows what hit him, the person collides with him head-on, their armful of notebooks and loose papers slipping in a heap to the floor, both Bucky and the man reeling back from the force of the collision.

“Shit, fuck, I’m so sorry,” the stranger says. Bucky is immediately taken aback at the bluntness of the guy’s first words, and the deep baritone emanating from such a petite frame alike.

“No problem,” Bucky says nevertheless, crouching down to help the man gather his horde of supplies. “Happens to the best of us.”

When he straightens up, most of the papers tucked into his arms, Bucky gets his first proper look at the accidentory assailant, and promptly loses his metaphorical footing. Because the guy is nothing but gorgeous - razor-sharp lines of brittle collarbones peeking out from under a too-big grey sweater, huge baby blues in a face pale as December’s first snow, offset by strong, dark eyebrows and a mop of unruly golden hair. He can’t be taller than 5’5”, but something about the set of his square jaw tells Bucky that the tiny blond wouldn’t hesitate to throw some hands if need be.

Bucky thinks he just fell a little bit in love.

The bombshell appears to be lost in dumbstruck wonder, staring right back at Bucky, going by the way his plush pink lips are parted and he hasn’t said anything in over two minutes. For a terrifying second Bucky thinks the hottie is looking at the arm, silently figuring out his emergency escape route, but the gleaming metal is covered by the worn black leather of Bucky’s jacket and a glove he’s taken to wearing on his left hand.

Ever since the climbing accident that took his limb and the love for mountain-related activities with it, he doesn’t think he’s worn a short-sleeved shirt in public more than once or twice, and only when the heat would be unbearable if he did otherwise. Looking down and finding a smooth, silver surface he can check the state of his topknot in instead of skin still feels odd sometimes, even though it’s been over a year since he left physiotherapy. But again, one never does get used to a change like this, he reckons.

Just as Bucky is mentally preparing for the possible necessity of performing CPR (and wouldn’t that be a treat. Sort of. He isn’t fucking _weird_ ), the guy speaks.

“Hi,” is all that leaves his mouth at first, but he quickly follows up with a wobbly, “How come I’ve never seen you here before?”

_Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing._

Bucky smiles, shifting the papers in his arms. “It’s because I don’t go here,” he says. “My friend recruited me to be her dogsbody today.”

The stranger opens his mouth in a silent ‘ah’, and gives an understanding tilt of his head. From his sympathetic expression, Bucky deduces he’s been in a similar unfortunate position before.

“Would I happen to know her?” Small and Pretty says, toying with one of the two rings piercing the cartilage of his left ear. It’s really goddamn distracting, how he rolls the jewelry between the pads of his fingers, and Bucky has to actively tear his eyes away to look the guy back in the face. Subconsciously, he acknowledges that he has to crane his neck down to do so - the tip of the blond’s nose reaches the approximate height of Bucky’s solar plexus.

“Maria Hill?” Bucky supplies. “Tall, dark hair? Kinda scary?” he adds to jog the man’s memory, and his companion nods fervently.

“Has a blonde girlfriend who always wears heels?” he inquires.

“That’s the one!” Bucky says. It’s a correct observation that he’s never made himself, but which stands out stark and obvious now that he thinks of it - a rhythmical clicking of heels higher or lower but always present follows Sharon wherever she goes.

“Yeah, she’s terrifying,” the guy says, and promptly goes silent. His gaze drops to the floor between them, fingers still playing with that damn steel in his ear. Bucky takes it as his cue to go; a silent ‘please fuck off already’ that he’s never used himself - if he wants someone to leave his periphery, he’ll say it square into their face - but has learned to recognize.

However, before Bucky can think of a swift excuse to take off, Small and Pretty opens his mouth again.

“Can I,” he begins, but it falls flat when the rest of his sentence escapes him. “Uh. Would you let me, um. Paint you? For an assignment. I’m not creepy, I promise,” he scrambles for words for the first time Bucky’s heard him, a beautiful flush spreading over his cheeks, all the way to the tips of his pierced-up ears, and Bucky can’t help but laugh - this man will be the end of him, apparently. Hot _and_ adorable, what a goddamn package.

Bucky puts on his best flirtatious grin; the Italian three-piece suit of smiles. “Would it be okay if I took you out for coffee first?” he purrs, honey-smooth, and Bucky didn’t think it possible, but the guy blushes even redder, ducking his head, awfully flustered.

“I’m,” he says, looking up at Bucky from under his lashes. And what lashes they are: long and dark, fanning out like a thick curtain. “Yeah. It would be very okay.”

Bucky sticks his hand out. “Bucky Barnes.”

“Steve. Rogers,” the stranger ( _Steve_ ) says, shaking Bucky’s hand. His grip is warm and strong, long fingers wrapping around Bucky’s firmly, making his heartbeat play hopscotch in his chest. They’re artist's fingers, thin and skilful, and Bucky forces himself to smother the inevitable thoughts of the lengths their undeniable dexterity goes to. _Stop being a fucking perv, Barnes._

“So, Steve,” Bucky says. He barely holds out against calling Steve ‘doll’; it’s his pet name of choice, and Steve is exceptionally deserving of having it bestowed on him. It doesn’t matter how many times it’s been repeated in Bucky’s mind - Steve is as pretty as a picture. Someone worth of admiring in the damn Louvre. “When are you free?”

Steve reaches to tuck his golden fringe behind his left ear adorned with an industrial bar, but the strands are too short to be contained, and they slip out immediately, brushing against one of his high cheekbones. It’s an old habit that’s overstayed its welcome, perhaps.

“If you don’t mind waiting ten minutes, I’ve got plenty of time now,” Steve says, smiling coyly, and Bucky’s knees almost buckle. Steve’s smile is a sight for sore eyes, and for eyes that are just fine, it’s a blessing - a sweet arc of pink, inviting to be kissed. “I’ve got to hand all this for grading first.” He nods down at the pile of paper Bucky’s still clutching to his chest.

“I’d wait a year if it meant you’d come back to me,” Bucky says with a shit-eating grin. Steve blushes again, that delightful shade of red blooming down his neck and disappearing into his collar.

“My professor’s office is just around the corner,” he mumbles.

Bucky only now notices the pin fastened to Steve's sweater; _If you play for both teams, you’ll always win_ , says the slogan, the words painted the colors of the bisexual flag. One of Bucky’s sisters, Laura, owns a shirt with the same catchline, and Bucky’s pretty sure she bought it when the two of them took part in New York Pride, scarcely dressed and bedazzled head to toe with glitter that Bucky still finds everywhere, from his pockets to the shower drain.

“I could join you?” Bucky says, intoning it to be a question. He doesn’t want to assume, and he has nothing against a moment to collect his thoughts. Steve, however, nods.

“D’you mind?” he says, jerking his chin to indicate the papers. “I really don’t need help carrying them.” There are beginnings of a frown pulling his eyebrows down. Bucky quickly places it; Steve probably gets undermined a whole lot, with his frail physique of a scholar rather than a sportsman’s bulging silhouette the like of Bucky’s.

Bucky holds the stack out obediently, transferring it into Steve’s arms with utmost care, so as not to squash or drop even a single post-it note. “I’ve no doubt,” he says. Steve’s face relaxes. Bucky jots it down as a small success on his part. “I only thought it appropriate to carry your date’s stuff.”

“Is that who I am?” Steve says with a small smirk.

“Yeah, I think it’s been established pretty early on.”

Steve elbows him in the side lightly. Bucky likes him even more because of it. “Jerk.”

“Punk.”

In compliance with Steve’s assurances, his professor’s office is, in fact, just around the corner. Where Maria’s teacher made her identity known with a scrap of tape, the person responsible for the class Steve attends has an elegant metal plaque attached to their door, reading _Prof. M. Harper, PhD_ in neat print. It’s soulless, in a way, but Bucky’s voice of reason knows it appears more competent than a glued-down handwritten note.

When Steve knocks, three times in quick succession, a masculine voice calls a muffled, “Come in!” from within the room.

“I’ll just be a sec,” Steve says quietly to Bucky.

“Take all the time you need,” Bucky replies, and with a grateful nod, Steve disappears into the office.

It’s not like Bucky’s eavesdropping; the walls are thin, not something you’d expect in an educational institution, and he doesn’t need a vantage point with his ear pressed to the door to hear a distinct murmur of conversation in the office. There’s some shuffling and a cabinet being opened then closed, and after another minute or two of talk and a, “Thank you” being spoken close to the door, Steve emerges from the room, a mound of drawings lighter.

Bucky steals a shameless glance at his legs showcased in dark denim. They’re long, slim, with strong thighs and shapely calves, jeans tucked into scuffed black combat boots. Bucky owns a similar pair, if not the exact same; old Doc Martens that, for all it’s worth, seem to grow with him, because he’s owned them since sophomore year of high school and hasn’t had to exchange them for a bigger size yet.

“You ready to be swept off your feet?” Bucky teases, only halfway sarcastic. Steve laughs. It’s a pretty sound - loud and bubbly, with a breathy quality to it.

“You’re free to try,” he says. He’s visibly more laid-back than when Bucky first tossed his flirtations at him, and when Bucky holds an elbow out to him, Steve takes it, long fingers wrapping around the sleeve of Bucky’s jacket.

 

* * *

  

“The only reason they haven’t done it yet is ‘cause they don’t have thumbs,” Steve says, pointing at Bucky with a cut french fry the girth of Bucky’s index finger.

Bucky’s taken them to his favored diner - he likes it here, because the food is actually delicious, the decor places firmly on the whole other side of the interior design scale than ‘dirty 50’s rest stop’, and he’s in platonic love with one of the waitresses; five feet worth of Hispanic butch firecracker who always gives him sneaky discounts on desserts. Gay solidarity, and all that.

“That’s a valid argument,” Bucky says, dragging a sip of his coke, “but I still stand by the boars.”

“See, they’ve corrupted you not to suspect them,” Steve says. With the heels of his hands, untouched by salt and grease, he mindlessly pushes his sleeves up to his elbows. To Bucky’s surprise, the inside of his left forearm, pale and slender, is covered with ink - clean, precise lines of black, coming together to weave flowers shaded with pink so light Bucky needs a closer look to pick it out.

If the twitch of his wrist is any indication, Steve notices Bucky looking, but he doesn’t pull his sleeves back down or jerk his arm away. Instead, he twists it out so Bucky can see better, and when Bucky glances up at him, asking a silent permission to touch, Steve nods. Tentatively, Bucky runs his thumb over the tattoo. The lines are not raised, so the ink isn’t fresh. Bucky is no botanist, nor is he an artist, but the drawing is beautiful, no doubt rendered with patience and care. It can't have been cheap, a job so admirable.

“They’re pink carnations,” Steve says. When Bucky raises his head to look at him, his sapphire eyes are bright. “They symbolise motherly love.”

“Oh?” Bucky says, prompting Steve to continue.

“Yeah. Got it done last year, for my ma’s birthday.” He smiles, traces the outline of a thin leaf with the tip of his finger, nudging Bucky’s thumb playfully where it’s still resting on Steve’s baby-soft skin. The guy must be using body lotion like it’s the hidden secret to longevity. “She cried when I showed her.”

“You must love her a whole lot,” Bucky says. His own family, close and distant, in America and overseas, is a big, tight-knit buzzing hive of many. Their Christmases, all their reunions, are bouts of chaos - shouting children and laughing adults all in one place, gathered to step in each other’s way. He adores them, but more often than not, they get on his nerves, as if on purpose.

Steve nods, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as he smiles. “She’s my hero. She raised me all by herself, and she did a damn fine job.”

“Humble much?” Bucky teases with a grin. Steve’s mentioned his childhood (he grew up in Brooklyn, too, how funny is that); a collection of ailments, constant visits in the hospital, not many friends because of it. Bucky felt oddly guilty when he listened to Steve talk about his only true ally being his sketchbook and a handful of pencils when he’d been a kid - Bucky’s early years had been a polar opposite, almost. He’d always been popular and well-liked amongst peers, healthy as a horse and twice as energetic. And if his teachers hadn’t been very fond of his constant running commentary that was bound to make at least five classmates chuckle during a presentation about Napoleon’s conquests, they hadn’t spoken it. He’d been a good student (not exceptionally so, but enough to deserve a smiley face and a ‘Good job!’ on his graded tests in Ms Dauncey’s red pen).

“Hey, I ain’t gonna belittle her efforts,” Steve smiles back, stealing a curly fry from Bucky’s plate and openly cackling at Bucky’s outrage as he dips his prey in the strawberry milkshake he’s slurped halfway through.

“You have your own, asshole,” Bucky says with no real heat, but still he reaches out and snags a couple of Steve’s fries before he can be stopped. Steve squawks, chewing on what he shamelessly pilfered, and slaps at the back of Bucky’s hand so his loot scatters on the table between them.

“Well done, neither of us can eat these now,” Bucky scolds. Steve raises his eyebrows at him and, without a word, he gathers the strewn fries and tosses them back onto his plate, returning to busying himself with a chicken tender.

“You’ll contract herpes from doing that,” Bucky says, peering furtively at the table’s shining surface. All counters are polished after each customer that’s used them, he knows that, but he’s studying to be a doctor, and the five second rule has been beaten out of his head once and for all by the repellent close-ups of bacteria he was required to write a lab report about in freshman year.

“I’m hoping to contract herpes from something else,” Steve mutters, slanting a glance at Bucky, and from the tight purse of his pink mouth, Bucky can tell Steve’s windpipe is being crushed by a withheld fit of hysteria.

“I…” Bucky starts, quickly trailing off when there’s no sensible response on his mind. He can’t help a snort from pushing past his lips, and soon enough, they’re both laughing so hard it’s not audible to the human ear, save for the occasional high-pitched wheezes.

At last, Bucky wipes the tears from his eyes with his flesh index finger, and drags a deep gulp of air into his quivering lungs. “On the one hand, I think that was a compliment, but on the other I’m really fucking mad at you for insinuating I have herpes,” he rasps. He feels like producing a sentence that long in his current pitiful state is an accomplishment akin to climbing the Seven Summits.

Luckily, Steve is not too far off - his eyes are glazed over with tears, rumpled, lashes clumped together, and the apples of his cheeks are gloriously flushed, as though he’s a cupid from a renaissance painting. “The opportunity was right there, did you expect me not to take it?” he says, a wicked grin embellishing his features.

Bucky’s suddenly struck by an overwhelming need of sitting themselves down on a park bench side by side, of throwing an arm over the wooden backrest with its peeling paint, pretending to just be stretching his limbs out; of watching Steve close his eyes and lean his head back to let the incessant sunlight dance over his face.

“How do you feel about getting out of here?” Bucky says, riding the wave of spontaneity. Steve has snatched his heart like no one ever has before, and he has no intention of giving it back any time soon. Bucky only hopes he’ll take care of it well. “The weather’s real nice today.”

Steve smiles: crooked, joyful, lovely. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

  

Bucky parts ways with Steve long after the sun has set and the air smells of the night in the city. In the doorway of Steve’s apartment block, Steve lets Bucky kiss him silly, leaning up into him and wrapping his slight arms around Bucky's neck, until a window opens high above and a woman’s shrill voice with a distinct Slavic accent yells out a promise of batting them away from each other with her broom if they don’t take their ‘damn smooching’ upstairs.

Steve presses one last chaste kiss to Bucky’s lips, a good luck charm for his way home, and retreats into his building, leaving Bucky tasting the cotton candy they shared in the park hours into the evening. The clock strikes ten thirty at night just as Bucky twists his key in the lock, and he gets good-naturedly made fun of by a pyjama-wearing Maria, with a thoroughness only she can muster.

Ultimately, Steve doesn’t lay his first brush stroke on that promised portrait until nine days later, when they’re lounging in Steve’s kitchen, Bucky bare-chested in favor of seeing his shirt envelope Steve’s thin frame as they nurse twin glasses of oversweet lemonade, playing footsie under the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://lattelyy.tumblr.com)!


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